Why Elephants and Fleas Don't Sweat

Patrick Colgan is the executive director of the Canadian Museum of
Nature in Ottawa.

This volume of educational and entertaining essays is intended “for
laypersons of all ages.”

The essays include energetic analyses of flying and swimming in
different species, including efficiencies, social effects, and
countercurrent mechanisms; animal diets, including their diversity and
plant–herbivore relations; water cycles; temperature regulation and
circulation; the energetics of reproduction, including sexual selection;
animal orientation; the biology of the African veldt and desert,
including material cycling among plants, ruminants, and insects, and
water conservation; and a biological survey of humans from prehistory to
the future, which, given its enormous span, is stretched very thinly. In
each case, there is a happy flow from the central material to numerous
related matters on energetics, effects of scale with body size,
adaptation, and comparisons across species. Human biology is woven in
throughout the book, from bipedalism in the tropics to agricultural
history.

Louw’s personal travels underpin the success of much of the
narrative. Fascinating tidbits—about, for instance, the heated eyes of
marlins, fat storage in tails, and the ability of Tibetan meditators to
control body temperature—spice the accounts. The style of writing is
direct and friendly, and there are helpful suggested readings and a
glossary.

Why Elephants and Fleas Don’t Sweat is recommended as a highly
palatable introduction to a wide range of biological topics.